


Comet's Tale

by Coralie (Belladonna89)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Outer Space, Science Fiction, Short One Shot, Space Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 07:08:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17617811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belladonna89/pseuds/Coralie
Summary: "The old starship struggled along the blooming solar winds...  Any more strain and the ship would rip itself apart with everyone aboard. Any less, and so would the galactic battle cruiser..."A small short story written for a school assignment. Any and all criticism very welcome.





	Comet's Tale

The old starship struggled along the blooming solar winds. Its sides heaved with mechanical effort. The heavy hand of the aether-powered engine shook the floorboards within an inch of their life. Any more strain and the ship would rip itself apart with everyone aboard. Any less, and so would the galactic battle cruiser thundering ominously towards them, plowing through space like a holy avenger. The starship rattled on, its stolen cargo rattling within, its crew rattling without. 

From his perch sitting on the highest deck, the Captain watched his crew's resolve pull at the seams, high above it all and entirely uncaring. Their hands pondered the rusted leavers and gear-shifts, his, the rickety divots in his stool. They rushed about the deck like a motley sea of crazed ants. He wouldn't budge for the world. In a moment like this, there was nothing but the stool that grounded him. Not even the looming hull of the battle cruiser existed to his blind eyes and deaf ears. 

It was shorter on one side, the stool he sat on. Its edges were rough and unsanded, the wood itself a cheap mulch of glue and shavings. Just a passing glance at it would produce days' worth of splinters, not to mention the sores one would get attempting to sit on it. It was worth more than all of the reactor cores they stole combined. What could the greedy machinations of glory-hound engineers have on the workmanship of those tiny hands? What weight in gold could their blueprints hold that wasn't worthless in the face of those small, proud smiles? 

"Absolutely nothing." The Captain proclaimed the artificial air. 

“Excuse me?" The battleship's General snarled. They had been boarded, it seemed. Awakened from his stupor, the Captain came to see the small army of soldiers for the first time, brought along by a tractor beam finally close enough to connect. Maybe a dozen. Probably more. They held his mercenary crew hostage by laser-point. The stool dug into the Captain's skin. He looked the General in the eyes. 

"You're getting... absolutely nothing." the Captain repeated slowly. 

"That's a bold statement to make," the General scoffed, "considering you and your crew are five steps from a cold grave." The Captain smiled lightly and easily. The general was right, of course. Five steps away was a frozen space funeral. Ten steps even farther though... 

“Really? I thought we'd be getting the whole traitor-to-the-country treatment. No public execution? Excessive fanfare and a melodramatic speech against the terrors of space piracy?" The Captain asked with cheer. He only needed to shift the stool under him just so... The General sneered at his comment with more than a healthy dose of disgust. 

"Maybe where you murdering, Seventh-Saturian scum hail from but w--AHCK!" The stool plowed into his jaw. The soldiers reached for their guns. The Captain sprinted for the wall. 

A fortnight ago, his crew-for-hire had groaned at the prospect of wearing jump-chips in their arms. "Why can't we just hyperspace the normal way?" they had asked, dreading the wormhole sickness like it was the plague. The Captain wondered if they still did. The laser beam that would have punctured right through his head halted, before it twisted in the warping air. It shot right through the poor bastard that fired it, not that they could feel. 

The old starship shuddered under the pull of spacetime. The Captain pondered the shattered stool in front of him. The broken token of love would be missed dearly. The disintegrated guests and unlucky crew trailed behind the ship like a comet’s tail. The Captain turned to go check on the wheezing engines. It was no matter. His children could make him a new stool anyways.


End file.
